


Here

by bklt



Series: Tether [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Act I, F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 18:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14982806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bklt/pseuds/bklt
Summary: When it came to Isabela, she seemed inconsistent with how much she kept close to her chest. Most of the time she was vague or deflected the question. Other times she revealed an almost uncomfortable amount of detail. Hawke understood: the two of them weren’t so different when it came down to it, especially in that respect.During a morning at the docks, Isabela falls into reminiscing about the past and lamenting about life in Kirkwall. Hawke learns more about Isabela than expected: including the fact that her perfect future might not involve her.





	Here

Like all things in Kirkwall, the divide between each of its districts could be distinguished between its invisible barriers of smells, one unpleasant tell-tale stench bleeding into the next.

Currently, it was the smell of tar.

Hawke shouldered her backpack and made her way through Lowtown. She left Gamlen’s in a bitter mood, and her surroundings did nothing to help. The calls of merchants advertising their wares were all around her, layered with the undercurrent of mutterings from day-drunk passerbys with splotched faces and dull eyes. Hawke wasn’t a vain person: but even so, she was secretly afraid that over time, she too would suffer the effects of the Lowtown air. She was afraid that her skin would blotch and harden in ugly places, her eyesight turning so poor that she wouldn’t even be able to lament her appearance in the mirror. Already she had been horrified by small surprises happening to her body, like the small bump on her face that she hoped would go away but didn’t, or how she didn’t want to admit that her hip was starting to give out. Hawke brought it up to her mother once, who scoffed and told her that she was just getting older, strangely accusatory, as if the very concept of time was her fault.  

Hawke knew she was getting close to her destination when she was hit with the smell of fish and salt.

The docks had the pleasure of being less miserable looking than its neighbour, but not by much. The scaffolding pressed against cracked walls gave the suggestion of attention, but its splintered wood leading up to broken, soot covered roofs said otherwise. To truly know a city, Isabela once said, you only need to look at its worst places and even worse off people. Despite being a central location for trade in Thedas, Kirkwall couldn’t even take care of its most important asset. A year had passed: Hawke felt tired of knowing.

When she rounded the corner into the docks proper, she saw Isabela leaning against an abandoned building as expected, arms crossed and eating a plump apple. The first night they were alone together—after the ordeal with Hayder in the Chantry—they talked well into the night, not realizing how much time had passed until the early tendrils of sunlight crept through the window. They became fast friends after that, spending their evenings drinking or fooling around in Isabela’s bed. Hawke was grateful that there was a place she could be away from Gamlen’s shack, but she was more grateful for the company. She suspected (or hoped, really) the same could be said for Isabela. Despite everyone’s warning and assumptions, she didn’t lose interest in Hawke, and she was delighted that everyone, so far, had been wrong.

Yet, it came as a surprise to Hawke when Isabela suggested they meet up that morning. The former Captain usually spent her mornings alone (“I’m a wreck when I’m hungover,” she’d said), and it was almost always at the docks, watching the day-to-day bustle to clear her head and think. Today was no different. Isabela was lost in thought, her eyebrows slightly raised as she chewed slowly. Hearing her approach, Isabela tossed the half eaten apple to Hawke, who caught it expertly.

“What are you thinking about?” Hawke said through a mouthful of apple.

“I was thinking,” Isabela said, not looking at Hawke. “Say you have a ship, and you slowly start replacing it—the planks, the sails, all of that. When does the old ship become the new one?”

Hawke tilted her head. She never considered herself a particularly deep thinker. It didn’t seem to bother Isabela, however, and she was thankful for it. “I don’t know. A third of the way through, maybe?”

“I think a ship is more…” Isabela reached at the air in front of her to pull the words out of it. “Let’s say it’s a house this time, and you do the same thing. It’s still your home, right?”

“I suppose it would be.”

“What I’m saying is, a ship never stops being the old one. It’s the people and the spirit of the thing.”

Hawke shrugged. “What brought this on?” That was a silly question. They were surrounded by ships.

The apple was snatched from Hawke’s hand, Isabela finishing the rest and dropping the core on the ground. “I don’t know. It’s an old little riddle.” She looped her fingers through the straps across Hawke’s chest. “What’s in the bag?”

“Lunch.”

“Good idea. You don’t want to eat the food here—unless you want to piss out of your ass for a few days.”

“Lovely. I’ll remember that the next time I want to be chained to the privy for an extended period of time.”  
  
They began to walk along the busy, cracked street, stopping at every ship so Isabela could either admire or criticize them in exquisite detail and terms that Hawke didn’t understand. When she looked particularly confused, Isabela would explain everything in even more confusing, granular detail. Hawke didn’t mind. Isabela wasn’t doing it to brag (something else Hawke didn’t mind her doing), it was simply her expressing her excitement and knowledge over something she knew intimately well. It was interesting, even if Hawke was sure to forget minutes later. She still didn’t know which side was starboard.

Isabela nodded to the mast of a merchant vessel. “See that patch job?”

She did. Her father took to carpentry when she was born, carving out small toys and simple furniture to be as unassuming as possible. When Hawke grew older, she spent many of her afternoons watching him work, even helping to add tiny details that required a smaller, more dexterous hand. Hawke felt a twinge of guilt. Carver would join her sometimes, and she used to wish he wouldn't. Like everything he did, it became a sort of contest, wanting approval from their father who spent more time with Bethany to hone her magic.

Hawke blinked. There was no use in dwelling on it now. “It looks like it’s not the first time they’ve fixed it either.”

Isabela was excited that Hawke had noticed. “Exactly! That won’t get them halfway through the Waking Sea.”

“Do you think we should tell them?” Hawke was only half joking.

Isabela shook her head. “If the carpenter doesn’t care, then I doubt the Captain does ether. People like that don’t learn unless they figure it out for themselves.” She tisked, personally offended by the ship. “My carpenter would never have done that.”

“He was good, I take it?”

“In what way? Because I never let my men touch me. Turns out people are less inclined to take orders from you once they’ve seen you naked.”

Hawke chuckled. Merrill was still decoding the mystery of how Isabela sending her crew to be alone helped with their loneliness while out at sea. “So I hear.”

“All my crew was good. You don’t become as good as me with a bunch of blundering fools.”

“That almost sounded like modesty!”  
  
“I know my worth. But I’m not thick enough to not understand that a ship is made up of more than its Captain.”

“How did you meet your crew?”

Her honey-coloured eyes lit up. “Ooh. It’s a good story.”

They started walking again, Isabela telling her tale as they dodged sunburned workers and the planks of wood they carried.

“I met a man about ten years ago—the Jackdaw.” She said his name as if Hawke was supposed to recognize it. Hawke said nothing and looked at the ground.

“He was well respected, as far as his type goes: a liar, thief, a damn good sailor, all of that. I challenged him to a duel. If I won, he’d have to find me a crew to work on my ship.”

“You had a ship but no crew?”

“What? That’s usually how it works.”

While that was true, Hawke had a feeling that there was something more to it—much like everything Isabela said—and it must have shown on her face.

“That’s a story for another time,” Isabela said. Hawke could count the amount of stories she was supposed to hear for later on four hands. “Well, he accepted. It was my first duel, you know.”

“Sounds like an ambitious one to take,” Hawke said.

“Oh, it was. I was way out of my depth and I knew it. But I didn’t have a choice. I needed it.”

There was a residual desperation in how she said it, something beyond wanting a crew badly enough that she would challenge someone of the Jackdaw’s stature to a duel, and certainly bad enough that she felt as if she had no choice but to do it.

“We clashed for hours, neither of us giving up ground. Got each other a few times,” she said, indicating a long gash across her bicep that healed wrong. “But, he was getting sloppy, and there was no way I was going to let myself lose. I saw an opening and I took it. I put my blade right to his throat. It was exhilarating. Scary, even.”

Hawke tried to picture what a younger Isabela must have been like. There was a casualness to everything she did, and her battles were not different. She toyed with her opponents with that glint in her eye matched with a smirk of confidence, her movements a dance that flowed like water. It wasn’t like Hawke, the careful moves of a soldier’s training, all reaction and devoid of style. Both women wielded daggers; but where Hawke stabbed, Isabela sliced. Hawke wondered if Isabela’s fighting grace and showmanship was something she always had, or if it was simply something gained and honed over the years. She made a note to ask her later.

“And the Jackdaw held up his end of the deal?”

“Of course. He…” she paused suddenly, and Hawke didn’t know if she realized it or not.

“He…?”

“He found the best crew anyone could ask for. The Captain was an absolute ass, but he taught me everything I know.”

“How did you become Captain, then?”

“The idiot got himself killed.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m the one who did it.” The sun reflected off the gold stud under Isabela’s smiling lips. “It was warranted. Shame, though. At least it worked out for me.”

Varric had regaled Hawke with tales of Isabela’s many exploits, all thrilling and ridiculous in a way that only Isabela could pull off. Some of the more unbelievable stories were probably the most true. Even with his love for editorializing, he knew when the outlandish stood on its own.

“And so began the terrifying reign of the Pirate Queen?” said Hawke.

“That’s right, sweet thing. Though I prefer Queen of the Eastern Seas, if you will.”

“I will. That’s quite a title.”

Isabela winked. “When you’re as good as me, you get to call yourself whatever you damn well please.”

They came to an empty port, allowing them to see far into the water of the Wounded Coast. The scattered remains of ships that didn’t make it to dock littered the horizon, half sunk and covered in grime from countless birds who had perched there over the years.

“You should have seen her, Hawke,” Isabela said. “The _Siren’s Call._ She was gorgeous: beautiful white sails, leather upholstery, a tasteful naked woman as the figurehead. The perfect crew.” Her face fell. She scanned each of the ruined ships with care and whispered. “It was all perfect.”

Isabela looked almost serene, her hands carefully folded in front of her like a funeral, contemplating something Hawke knew couldn’t be said. There were no words for that type of loss, of losing a ship and crew at the bottom of the sea, or to monsters cutting through Lothering as homes burned to the ground. So they stood quietly together, the world around them as far away as their past lives.

“Anyways,” Isabela broke the silence. “Let’s see what’s in that bag of yours.”

A pier was a short distance away, stretching far enough into the water to give a sense of privacy. The rotting wooden planks protested underneath their boots, making Hawke suddenly aware that she didn’t know how to swim.

They settled near the edge, Isabela hanging her legs over the water as Hawke took her place beside her, opening her pack and unwrapping sandwiches for the both of them: salted cured ham, tomatoes, bitter greens, and mild, soft cheese between crusty bread brushed in olive oil and herbs.

“Quite fancy, Hawke! Now I know you’re a noble.”

“Oh, my sandwich configuration gave it away?”

“It certainly wasn’t your bearing.” Isabela joked, brushing Hawke’s thigh. She broke off a piece of bread and threw it behind her. She watched seagulls fight over the tiny morsel until a victor emerged. “What’s the first thing you’ll buy when you’re rich from your expedition?

“More meat,” Hawke said, not needing time to think. “Offal stew is only so exciting until it isn’t anymore.” To break up the monotony, Hawke bought foods from the Hightown vendors whenever she had money to spare, which was rare.

“You know, the rich have that sort of thing as a delicacy. They find it quaint, making peasant dishes into a grand meal. It’s adventurous to them...so I hear.”

“Have you been around many rich people?”

“I’ve been around a lot of people.”

Hawke smirked. “A story for another time?”

“You’re catching on.”

Hawke tried not to breathe in the air as she began munching on her sandwich. “You could come with me to the Deep Roads, you know. The offer’s still on the table.”

Isabela hummed. “It’s a long time to be away. And being underground isn’t exactly my idea of fun.”

“If it works out, it could be worth it.” It was a bad argument. Hawke would rather fight against ten darkspawn than face a small spider. Fearing the underground was reasonable by comparison.

“It could be.” Isabela broke off more bread and dropped it into the water, presumably for the fishes. Hawke didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop wasting the food. “It’s being gone that’s the problem. I have...business I can’t miss.”

Hawke wasn’t entirely sure what Isabela did all day when she wasn’t with her. From what she could tell, the Queen of the Eastern Seas spent her days drinking and breaking the fingers of men with hands that wandered too much for their own good. If her run-in with Hayder was any indication, however, Isabela had more going on than she cared to reveal—and a lot at that.

It wasn’t Hawke’s concern. People’s secrets were something she stopped caring about long ago. But when it came to Isabela, she seemed inconsistent with how much she kept close to her chest. Most of the time she was vague or deflected the question. Other times she revealed an almost uncomfortable amount of detail. Hawke understood: the two of them weren’t so different when it came down to it, especially in that respect. Her whole life was a secret: having mages in the family made sure of that.

Even so, Hawke hungered for any sort of answer from Isabela. “Surely it isn’t more important than a bunch of treasure. Are you sure you’re a pirate?” She hoped the bad joke would mask the underlying question.

“Have I ever told you how pretty your eyes are?”  
  
Hawke held up her hands. She knew what that sentence meant. “Alright. Topic dropped.”

“Believe me Hawke, I want to go. But if the relic shows up and I’m not here…” The flash of worry that momentarily escaped from Isabela caused Hawke to interject.

“I’ll bring you back something nice. It’ll be like you were there the whole time. Without the enclosed spaces.”

“Then it looks like you’ll be doing the work for me.” Isabela sighed, no doubt frustrated at the prospect of losing a potential fortune. Hawke regretted bringing up the topic at all.

“You know what I’d do with a bunch of money?” Isabela asked.

“What?”

“I’d do it all over again.” The sandwich lay forgotten on the butcher paper beside her. “But things don’t work out the same way twice, do they?”

“No. They don’t.”

The sound of pounding drums began a few ships away, the sound of a starting voyage. “I want to get away—” Isabela spread her arms in front of her, “from all of this. There’s nothing here. And I can’t even leave.”

Hawke grasped for something to say. It wasn’t hard to see that Isabela drowned in the ennui that came from staying in place. Seeing her as melancholy as she was in that moment was new for Hawke, which made thinking of the right words even harder. Hawke knew restlessness, and Hawke knew boredom and discontent and all the ways it slowly chipped away at her. But it suddenly occurred to Hawke that she felt none of those things anymore. Somehow, here of all places, Hawke found excitement and purpose. She finally felt that she could be good at something, however dishonest it was. People knew she got things done, and she stopped flinching when her name was met with recognition. Most of all, she made connections—friendships—that she didn’t have to keep at arm’s length. Varric’s weekly games of Wicked Grace was a happy way to keep track of the passage of time, his stories lighting up the room with laughter. Aveline occasionally visited Gamlen’s shack (the only person Hawke trusted enough to do so), making her mother laugh and distracting her from her own problems until she left. And Isabela…

Hawke didn't want to imagine a world without late nights and sarcastic comments when a job went poorly. She wanted her here for whatever came next for the both of them. But her friend’s happiness meant more than that—even if that meant she wouldn't be part of it.

“You’ll have a ship again. I have a feeling.” Hawke was sincere, but the words felt hollow as soon as they left her mouth. She took another bite of her food to fill the void.

The sun had reached the highest point in the cloudless sky, its heat beating down on them. The smell was getting to be unbearable. If Isabela noticed, she didn’t show it.

“You’re okay, Hawke.”

“I aim to be as mediocre as possible.”

“With the way your life is going, it looks like you’ll have to enjoy that while you can.”

“Why’s that?”

Isabela suddenly rediscovered her sandwich. “Things are going to be different when you come back.”

“I don’t think I’ll make for a good noble, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not just that. I have a feeling—”

“A lot of those today.”

“I have a feeling,” Isabela ignored Hawke’s interruption, “that something big is going to happen. To you, I mean.”

Hawke wasn’t superstitious, but the way Isabela said it made her shiver. “I thought you didn’t believe in all of that charlatan stuff.”

“Oh, no, it’s bullshit,” she agreed. “But intuition? Now, that’s a whole other thing.”

“So if I’m right and you get a ship, and you’re right and something big happens to me, what then?”

Isabela poked Hawke’s nose, careful not to touch the red paint she wore. “Then I get to brag about you while I’m across the sea.”

Hawke didn't know what she wanted to hear, but it wasn't that. “I’m flattered.”

Isabela stared at Hawke with a look she hadn’t seen before and couldn’t place. “When you get your estate and have all the expensive meat you could ever want...promise me something?”

“Sure?”

Isabela opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it again. “Promise me you’ll buy some spices. Fereldan cooking is always so bland.”

Hawke tried to chuckle. “Alright. I’ll buy some spices. Just for you.”

Satisfied for reasons unknown, Isabela nodded and laid back onto the pier, placing her hands behind her head. “Well, here we are, at any rate.”

The words rang in Hawke’s ears. Kirkwall was home now, and it would be for Isabela too until it wasn't anymore, even if she would never admit it. “I suppose this is where I could say that we can make the most of it,” Hawke said.

“You could say that.” Isabela poked Hawke’s thigh before she could open her mouth. “Don’t actually say it.”

Hawke smiled. Intuition.

“I won’t.”

 


End file.
